Sauron? Is That You?

Sauron? Is that you?

Scientists reveal first image ever made of a black hole

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists on Wednesday revealed the first image ever made of a black hole, depicting a fiery orange and black ring of gravity-twisted light swirling around the edge of the abyss.

Assembling data gathered by eight radio telescopes around the world, astronomers captured a picture of the hot, shadowy lip of a supermassive black hole, the light-sucking monsters of the universe theorized by Einstein more than a century ago and confirmed by observations for decades. It is along this edge that light bends around itself in a cosmic funhouse effect.

“We have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole. Here it is,” said Sheperd Doeleman of Harvard.

University of Waterloo physicist Avery Broderick, a co-discoverer, declared: “Science fiction has become science fact.”

In fact, Jessica Dempsey, a co-discoverer and deputy director of the East Asian Observatory in Hawaii, said the fiery circle reminded her of the flaming Eye of Sauron from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Unlike smaller black holes that come from collapsed stars, supermassive black holes are mysterious in origin. Situated at the center of most galaxies, including ours, they are so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational pull. This one’s “event horizon” — the precipice, or point of no return, where light and matter begin to fall inexorably into the hole — is as big as our entire solar system.

Three years ago, scientists using an extraordinarily sensitive observing system heard the sound of two much smaller black holes merging to create a gravitational wave, as Albert Einstein predicted. The new image, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and announced around the world, adds light to that sound.

Outside scientists suggested the achievement could be worthy of a Nobel Prize, just like the gravitational wave discovery.

While much of the matter around a black hole falls into a death spiral, never to be seen again, the new image captures gas and dust that is lucky to be circling just far enough to be safe and to be seen millions of years later on Earth.

Taken over four days when astronomers had “to have the perfect weather all across the world and literally all the stars had to align,” the image helps confirm Einstein’s general relativity theory, Dempsey said. Einstein a century ago even predicted the symmetrical shape that scientists just found, she said.

The measurements were taken at a wavelength the human eye cannot see, so the astronomers added color to the image, choosing gold and orange because the light is so hot.

What the image shows is gas heated to millions of degrees by the friction of ever-stronger gravity. That gravity creates a funhouse effect where you see light from both behind the black hole and behind you as the light curves and circles around the black hole itself.

The project cost $50 million to $60 million, with $26 million of that coming from the National Science Foundation.

Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Ethan Vishniac, who was not part of the discovery team but edits the journal where the research was published, pronounced the image “an amazing technical achievement” that “gives us a glimpse of gravity in its most extreme manifestation.”

He added: “Pictures from computer simulations can be very pretty, but there’s literally nothing like a picture of the real universe, however fuzzy and monochromatic.”

“It’s just seriously cool,” said John Kormendy, a University of Texas astronomer who wasn’t part of the discovery team. “To see the stuff going down the tubes, so to speak, to see it firsthand. The mystique of black holes in the community is very substantial. That mystique is going to be made more real.”

Myth says a black hole would rip you apart, but scientists said this one is so big, and thus rotates so slowly, that someone could fall into it and not be torn to pieces. But the person would never be heard from again.

Black holes are “like the walls of a prison. Once you cross it, you will never be able to get out and you will never be able to communicate,” said astronomer Avi Loeb, who is director of the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard but was not involved in the discovery.

The black hole depicted in the image is about 6 billion times the mass of our sun and is in a galaxy called M87 that is about 53 million light years from Earth. One light year is 5.9 trillion miles, or 9.5 trillion kilometers.

The telescope data was gathered by the Event Horizon Telescope two years ago. Completing the image was an enormous undertaking, involving about 200 scientists, supercomputers and hundreds of terabytes of data delivered worldwide by plane.

“We’ve been hunting this for a long time,” Dempsey said. “We’ve been getting closer and closer with better technology.”

https://apnews.com/05d573dd29924452a491431922d22e61

AP NEWS

Scientists reveal first image ever made of a black hole

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists on Wednesday revealed the first image ever made of a black hole, depicting a fiery orange and black ring of g

If you’re European, in a couple of weeks you will be denied any and all access to fandom contents on Tumblr and everywhere else on the internet. Here’s why.

On June, 20th the JURI of European Parliament approved of the articles 11 and 13 of the new Copyright Law. These articles are also known as the “Link Tax” and the “Censorship Machines” articles.

Articles 13 in particular forces every internet platform to filter all the contents we upload online, ending once and for all the fandom culture. Which means you won’t be able to upload any type of fandom works like fan arts, fan fictions, gif sets from your favourite films and series, edits, because it’s all copyrighted material. And you won’t also be able to share, enjoy or download other’s contents, because the use of links will be completely restricted.

But not everything’s lost yet. There’s another round of voting scheduled for the early days of July.

What you can do now to save our internet, is to share these informations with all of your family members and friends, and to ask to your MEP (the members of the European Parliament from your country) to vote NO at the next round, to vote against articles 11 and 13.

Here you can find more news and all the details to contact your MEP:

https://saveyourinternet.eu

Also, sign and share this petition:

https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-stop-the-censorship-machinery-save-the-internet?recruiter=50668942&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial

We have just a couple of weeks to stop this complete madness, don’t let them dictating the way we enjoy our internet.

#SaveYourInternet now!

Reblogging, something everyone should know

Reblog and you might save someone’s life, especially with all our Black Girls going missing #ProtectBlackGirls #SaveLife

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a mix between a specialist and a goblin. Also, if I like an authors work, I go to their profile and read everything they've written in the fandoms I like.

AO3 Search Modes

1. Newbie  Find fandom on AO3. Skim down the most recent fics in the fandom. Downside: Overwhelming, much chaff.

2. Old School Go to specific fandom. Sort by kudos. Start at the top. Downside: Oldest fics tend to have the most kudos, also things that update a lot or crossover with more popular fandoms. Newer stuff gets lost.

3. Rebel Go to specific fandom. Sort by kudos. Start at the end. (Note: some actual gems can be found this way, but it requires much patience.)

4. Ravenous Go to specific fandom. Read everything. Not recommended for Very Large Fandoms. Can be done with newer, smaller fandoms.  Downside: lots of mediocre fic in many fandoms.

5. Specialist Go to specific fandom. Search for a specific pairing. Exclude every pairing you don’t like. Exclude keywords that you dislike. Exclude all crossovers in general or specific crossovers if your fandom has a natural crossover (i.e. Doctor Who/Torchwood, Stargate SG1/Atlantis). Sort by bookmarks.  Downsides: you miss some newer good stuff, but starting from the top the first chunk of fics are likely to be very good and exactly what you want.

6. Goblin Click on a tag you like in a fic you just read. Go to the exclude section and start eliminating fandoms you’re not interested in, saying in a squeaky goblin voice, “Not you! Not you! Not you!”. Filter. Repeat until the top fandoms are all things you like and there are no more than a handful of fics in other fandoms represented. Back up when AO3 balks. It takes a while, so if you’re in Very Large Fandoms, this is a great method, and if you like obscure fandoms, not so much. Exclude pairings and tags you don’t like. Eliminate all unfinished fic. Sort by bookmarks. Start reading. Downside: Periodically get thrown by a random fandom you’re not in showing up anyway. Get jarred by switching fandoms constantly.  Upside: Variety of really good fics that people liked enough to bookmark. What’s your method?

The sheer amount of people that seem to need justice and are being targeted by oppressive governments and agencies can sometimes seem to be overwhelming. I will share this because this all needs to come to light so people can't keep saying it doesn't exist.

I doubt this will get much traction on here, but Puerto Rico’s governor has just passed Código Civil (Civil Code) that has loopholes regarding women’s and LGBT+ rights. This code was passed despite activists’ call for a veto, and was intentionally speedily passed so that public hearings would not take place

In a nutshell, women’s bodily autonomy has the potential to be restricted which can take away their right to abortions, and the discrimination bans against the LGBT+ community are able to be overridden. 

5 trans people have died violently in Puerto Rico since the beginning of 2020. 

I ask my followers and mutuals to please reblog. There is so much going on in America today and this is one thing to add. There are protests for #BlackLivesMatter in Puerto Rico and a significant black community there. As an Afro Latina and a member of the LGBT community, I ask you to spread this and help.

Just making sure this gets out there. I will be donating as well.

If you haven’t heard there is a literal massacre going on in Sudan.

People are getting kidnapped, arrested, raped and killed. This has been going on for a few days now but naturally there’s hardly any media coverage.

THE WORLD CARES MORE ABOUT AN EMPTY CHURCH IN FRANCE THAN HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT BLACK MUSLIMS DYING IN SUDAN.

There are a few ways to help:

 - Emergency Medical Aid Donation

- Facebook campaign raising funds for food and other necessities

- International Rescue Committee

- Save The Children

Even if you can’t donate please help spread the news!!

#SudanMassacre